(this didn't get through yesterday?)

Back in Gainesville after a couple of pleasant days at Cedar Key. Too much rain and not enough stars, but it's a nice place anyhow. Best fried-fish sandwiches and crab cakes in the area, served with lovely placid scenery.

(In LJ I'll post a scan of the little ball-point pen drawing I did, sitting at a beer joint drinking [ptui!] O'Doul's. Some non-alcoholic beers are drinkable, but it's not one of them.)

At least the rains this morning were soft, and driving was pleasant. It's almost fifty miles of ruler-straight road through swamp and scrub pine. The whole couple of days I only saw one animal of note – on a gravel road out to a soi-disant observing site, at dusk, I flushed a huge owl, I guess the barred variety, and he flew in front of me around eye level for some time. Gorgeous.

Your litany of Poe books is impressive, Dave, but I think I'd have you beat in Stevenson. At a bookstore in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, the owner made me a special deal for all of his hardcover duplicates of a Scribners' set. It's a red-leather 1908 edition, complete but for Kidnapped. They came to about ten bucks apiece, including shipping to the U.S. I don't really collect books (I just accumulate them), but that was an offer I couldn't refuse.

(I've had a lot of fun leafing through the obscure volumes, things like travel books and criticism of long-forgotten tomes. His wife Fanny was always after him to stop wasting his time writing juvenile trash like Treasure Island – it was the criticism and reviews that put bread on the table.)

Speaking of Wales, company coming tonight for Welsh rarebit. I'd better start getting my stuff together for that.

Joe